Resource Type: Presentation
Authors: Kate Greene, Sarah Dominis, Laurel Hatt
Published: 12/10/2015

Resource Description:

Universal health coverage (UHC) means anyone can access necessary, good quality health care without suffering financial hardship. A strong health workforce is crucial to achieving UHC, but poor quality pre-service training and governance often weaken the health workforce. In many countries, governments and families alike spend their limited funds on pre-service training institutions that graduate health workers with inadequate skills, which can result in poor patient care and poor health outcomes. Further, some governments do not provide strong stewardship of the health workforce, and miss critical opportunities to improve morale, retention, and skills.

This presentation focuses on three countries that are taking a systems approach to solving these two problems, with help from HFG: Haiti, Côte d’Ivoire, and Swaziland. In Haiti, HFG is working with the Ministry of Health to bolster its process for accrediting nursing education institutions, known as reconnaissance. More than 40 schools have already received the new accreditation. The government of Côte D’Ivoire identified task-sharing between nurses/midwives and doctors for HIV care as a key strategy to improve HIV outcomes. HFG is supporting the Ministry of Health in developing policies and training programs on task-sharing to integrate into health worker training curricula. In Swaziland, HFG is working with the government to establish standardized hiring and compensation policies for health workers, and to strengthen human resource information systems.  HFG also worked with the Swaziland Nursing Council to strengthen their capacity to regulate the nursing profession and expand nursing competencies to incorporate international best practices.